My work examines objects that have been appropriated from a residence into a curated, museum space. I begin my projects with observations I make while wandering through decorative arts wings and period rooms. My paintings reflect my experiences as a museum visitor. I am interested in how my perception of museum objects changes with the varying degrees of distance I experience in these spaces. The painting “Object from the Linsky Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (with detailing of the same color as the brass coated banister” is based on an ornate table. When I first saw this table, I was fascinated by how difficult it was to examine and appreciate it; a brass hand-rail stood between me and the object. As I began the painting, I found a harmony between the color of the rail and that of the wood marquetry of the table.
When I see an object in a museum, I often desire a more intimate experience with this object than the museum display allows. If I were to own something, I could hold it, smell it, study its details; I acknowledge this longing to possess the original object by sculpting a version of it. While my paintings depict the distance between observer and observed, my sculptures begin with a personal and often physical relationship to an object. As I construct a sculpture, my affections towards the original are redirected towards the thing I have made. For example to make “Wallpaper from the Dining Room at Wildwood Manor in Nebraska City, NE (for the Hans Hofmann Gallery at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum),” I painted the meticulous pattern by hand even though it was originally printed. I then found a wall for my wallpaper to inhabit, as if it was an original wallpaper made for that space. With “Trey Anastasio’s Grandmother’s Chair (my Vermont studio chair),” I wrapped the actual chair in bits of drawing paper until I could remove the chair, leaving a paper cast resembling a hollow original. I find these processes meditative, even ceremonial: my labor culminates in homages to the original objects. At the same time, the sculpture itself becomes an original, purporting to be what it is modeled after and contesting the authenticity of its source.
When curators and historians display a utilitarian object in a museum they transform its value from utilitarian worth into historical importance. My work emphasizes this curatorial projection of aesthetic, monetary, and historic value onto museum objects. For instance, the piece entitled “Salvatore Scibona’s Typewriter (on which he wrote his highly acclaimed novel, THE END),” is a constructed interpretation of an object that has not yet entered the realm of historic artifact. It is based on an object still used by its original owner. The title suggests Scibona might be famous, which would imbue his typewriter with an historic value that would affect the sculpture modeled after it. Inversely, the fact that there is an artwork based on this typewriter promotes the importance of the typewriter. By situating my work in the gaps between curator and object and between object and viewer, I examine the role the museum plays in the existence of these objects and its relationship to artists working today.